Boeing P-26 Peashooter - fighter aircraft USA; 1/72Model: SS 49

$ 13.00

The Boeing P-26 Peashooter was the first American all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane used by the United States Army Air Corps. Designed and built by Boeing; the prototype first flew in 1932, and the type was still in use with the U.S. Army Air Corps as late as 1941 in the Philippines/

Combat service

The first Boeing P-26 to experience major combat operation was the Chinese Model 281. On 15 August 1937, eight P-26/281s from the Chinese Air Force 3rd Pursuit Group, 17th Squadron, based at Chuyung airfield, engaged eight out of 20 Mitsubishi G3M Nell medium bombers from the Kisarazu Air Group sent to attack Nanking. The Chinese Boeing fighters helped shoot down two of the four Japanese bombers destroyed that day without suffering any losses. Subsequent engagements between the Chinese Peashooter pilots and pilots of the Imperial Japanese Navy flying the Mitsubishi A5M "Claudes" were the first aerial dogfights and kills between all-metal monoplane fighter aircraft. A single P-26 was in service with the Spanish Republican Air Force during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, but no aerial kills were recorded with this fighter aircraft. It was shot down in 1936.

By December 1941, U.S. fighter strength in the Philippines included 28 P-26s, 12 of which were operational with the 6th Pursuit Squadron of the Philippine Army Air Corps. Filipino-flown P-26s claimed one G3M and two or three Mitsubishi A6M2 Zeros before the last of the P-26s were burned by their crews on 24 December 1941.

Only nine P-26s remained airworthy, serving in the Panama Canal Zone. In 1942–43, the Fuerza Aérea de Guatemala acquired seven P-26s ostensibly by the U.S. government smuggling them in as "Boeing PT-26A" trainers to get around restrictions of sales to Latin American countries. The last two P-26s in service were still flying with Guatemala's Air Force until 1956, when they were replaced with P-51 Mustangs. The P-26's last combat operation was with the Guatemalan Air Force during a coup in 1954.